ANNE KENNEDY
I was a feminist in the eighties
To be a feminist you need to have
a good night’s sleep.
To be a feminist you need to
have your consciousness raised
and have a good night’s sleep.
To be a feminist you need to
have regard for your personal well-being
have your consciousness raised
and have a good night’s sleep.
To be a feminist you need to
have a crack at financial independence
have regard for your personal well-being
have your consciousness raised
and have a good night’s sleep.
To be a feminist you need to
champion women, have a crack at
financial independence, have regard
for your personal well-being
have your consciousness raised and
have a good night’s sleep.
To be a feminist you need to do the
childminding, washing, shopping, cooking and cleaning
while your mind is on higher matters
and champion women, have a crack
at financial independence, have regard
for your personal well-being
have your consciousness raised
and have a good
night’s sleep.
To be a feminist you need to button
your coat thoughtfully, do the childminding
washing, shopping, cooking and cleaning
while your mind is on higher matters
and champion women, have a crack at
financial independence, have regard for
your personal well-being, have your
consciousness raised and have
a good night’s
sleep.
To be a feminist you need to
engage in mature dialogue with
your spouse on matters of domestic
equality, button your coat thoughtfully
do the childminding, washing, shopping, cooking and cleaning
while your mind is on higher matters
and champion women, have a crack at
financial independence, have regard
for your personal well-being, have
your consciousness raised and
have a good
night’s
sleep.
Then a lion came prowling out of the jungle
and ate the feminist all up.
Anne Kennedy was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1959. She has written a novella, and two novels, Musica Ficta and A Boy and His Uncle, and a book of poems, Sing-song. Many of her short fictions have appeared in journals and anthologies, including ‘Jewel’s Darl’, which won the BNZ/Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award and was made into a short film by Peter Wells. Anne has worked as a screenwriter, most recently adapting Dorothy Porter’s Monkey’s Mask for film. She lives in Honolulu with her husband and two children.
Kennedy comments: ‘This poem was written in the context of a long sequence, Sing-song, which charts the domestic life of a family nursing a child through severe eczema. Among the relentless march of illness, I wanted some poems that looked outward from the main text, like abstractions, reflecting that, no matter what’s going on, our view is never simply one thing. (This is partly why I wrote this narrative as poetry, because it allows quick-change-artist shifts of voice and view.)
‘ “I was a feminist in the eighties” is one of these abstracted poems.
‘It’s also a bit of a joke about getting real. In my twenties (the 80s), I really did think putting yourself second (or indeed, last!), or looking like death warmed up from tiredness were not feminist aspirations, and certainly something that could never happen to me. On a more serious level, I suppose this poem begs the question of what it is to be a feminist.’
Links
New Zealand Book Council author page
Trout
Auckland University Press author profile